Smith. — Notes on New Zealand Earthworms. 119 



Genus Deinodrilus, Beddard. 



Deinodrilus benhami, Beddard. Quart. Jour. Mic. Sci., 

 vol. xxix. 



This remarkable species, which forms an intermediate link 

 between Perichceta and Acanthodrilus, was discovered in 

 November, 1887, in the forest mould at Lake Brunner, West- 

 land. I cannot, however, give any account of its habits, as 

 the specimens were collected, along with others of Perichceta 

 intermedia, only a few days before 1 left the district. Its 

 structural characters are defined by Beddard as follows : — 



"This remarkable genus can be at once distinguished from 

 any other by the fact that the setae, though paired, are more 

 than eight in number to each segment. All the segments of 

 the body are furnished with six pahs of setae, three on each 

 side, arranged at about equidistant intervals. The arrange- 

 ment of the setae, therefore, in Deinodrilus offers an interme- 

 diate condition between the four pairs of Lumbricus, &c, and 

 the continuous row of numerous setae of Perichceta, which has 

 been hitherto wanting. It is interesting to find that this worm 

 is intermediate between Perichceta and Acanthodrilus in other 

 characters which will be referred to in the course of the descrip- 

 tion, and are summed up in the table wmich concludes the 

 description. 



"External Characters. — The length of the largest specimen 

 is about 5in. A prostomium is present, but does not com- 

 pletely divide the circumoval segment. The clitellum is well 

 developed in one of the two specimens which I examined ; it 

 occupies segments xiv., xv., and xvi., having therefore precisely 

 the range which characterizes so many species of Perichceta : 

 as in that genus, the glandular modification of the epidermis of 

 the clitellar segments is continuous right round the body, 

 being equally well developed upon the ventral and upon the 

 dorsal surface. The only apertures visible upon the outside of 

 the body are the dorsal pores, the apertures of the male and 

 female reproductive ducts, and of the spermathecae. No 

 nephridiopores could be made out. The dorsal pores com- 

 mence between the eleventh and twelfth segments. The ovi- 

 ducal pores are upon the fourteenth segment ; they are paired, 

 and situated a little in front and to the inside of the ventral- 

 most seta. The apertures of the atria are, as in Acanthodrilus, 

 two pairs ; one pair are upon the seventeenth, the other upon 

 the nineteenth segment ; they correspond in position to the 

 outer seta of the ventral pair. The spermathecal pores are 

 close to the anterior body of segments viii. and ix. ; they corre- 

 spond in their relation to the setae with the male pores. 



" Internal Anatomy. — The longitudinal muscles have their 

 fibres arranged in that remarkable bipennate fashion which is 



